


Dean Thomas' Family Story

by IamShadow21



Series: Abandoned, Unfinished and Unpublished Potter Works [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Diagon Alley, Family, Family Secrets, Gen, Incomplete, Post - Deathly Hallows, Post-War, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-08
Updated: 2008-08-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 07:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As far as Dean knows, he's Muggleborn, but he's never been certain. His birth father took off when he was a baby, and he was raised by his mum and his step-dad. </p><p>A chance meeting in Diagon Alley could change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dean Thomas' Family Story

**Author's Note:**

> This was something I really adored. I took the JKR information that Dean's father was actually a wizard killed in the First War and ran with it - and then fell down trying to develop the major plot to bring the threads of Dean's family together. What I did have was really solid, but it just didn't go anywhere. My favourite thing was having Luna basically apprenticing with Ollivander. I'm a bit disappointed I never used that in something I published.

**1980**  
He hated the war.

He hated what it had done to those around him; those he thought he knew. People he had counted as friends had been twisted into something unrecognisable, or were hiding like mice, afraid of friend and foe alike.

He’d met a girl. A nice girl; one who made him laugh, one who made his heart trip fast, made him feel out of breath when she smiled. A Muggle girl. _This is real_ , he knew.

So, when she got pregnant, despite all their precautions, he made a decision. He proposed, she accepted, and he moved in. One day, while she was at work, he warded the house against everything he could. Then he tucked his wand away, and vowed never to use it again.

If the Wizarding world was going all to hell, he was going to take his happiness where he could.

***

 **1999**  
Dean still felt twitchy and uncomfortable walking in the open, like this, even with Seamus at his shoulder to jolly him along. He’d retreated to his home for months after the end of the war, and, without a reliable wand, he’d reverted to living as a Muggle, more or less. His mother lamented the way his clothing hung on his frame, and fed him so much he thought he’d burst. Usually slim, he had to admit, after eyeing himself in the mirror, that he looked like Harry used to after a hard summer with his Muggle family.

He hung out with his siblings, learned how to do things manually again, and toyed with the idea of trying out for art college rather than going back to Hogwarts in September. He got the impression from his mother than she’d love to have him at home, _safe_ , where she could watch him, after all those months he’d spent on the run.

In the end, he found he couldn’t keep away. He’d accepted letters from his friends, though his replies to them were brief. They were full of tales of rebuilding, of loss, of optimism, of a new government slowly making reparations. He didn’t take the _Prophet_ , or the _Quibbler_ , or even the _Times_. He’d holed himself up, away from the world, and tried to pretend the last year hadn’t occurred. 

And then, Seamus had turned up on Dean’s doorstep, charmed his mother and his sisters with his accent and his cheeky smile, and persuaded him to slip on a set of robes and come with him to Diagon Alley.

“Ye’ll be needin’ a wand,” Seamus said, politely ignoring Dean’s nervous shuffling as he opened the wall, “and I’ve missed ye.”

The bluntness almost pulled Dean up short. Seamus wasn’t one for serious declarations of affection. He’d blithely kiss Dean on the lips for a laugh when they’d had a few and their spirits were merry, but genuine, meaningful statements like that were few and far between, and Dean automatically felt guilty. 

Ollivander’s was dark and dusty, as it always had been, but there was something else different about it too, something that made Dean feel unsettled and uncomfortable. The shadows seemed sinister, where when he was eleven they had merely seemed mysterious. Seamus had gone to browse up and down the Alley, leaving him alone for the rather personal and tedious chore of finding a wand.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come. I didn’t think it would be today, though,” commented a familiar voice; definitely not the one he expected.

“Luna?” he said, squinting in an attempt to see through the gloom.

She drifted towards him, almost like a ghost. Her hair was unbound, and her grey cardigan was knitted in some kind of lacy, elaborate style that resembled cobwebs. The smile on her face, however, was radiant.

“Here, try this one,” she said, holding a wand out to him, handle first.

“Where’s Mr Ollivander?” Dean asked eventually, after about three or four wands had been discarded.

“He’s not feeling very well today,” Luna explained. “He’s upstairs with Daddy.”

“You’re living here?” Dean asked, blinking in confusion.

“Our house blew up,” Luna said conversationally, in the tone one would reserve for statements about the weather, “and Daddy and Mr Ollivander still aren’t strong. We’re very close to St. Mungo’s here.”

“But the shop...” Dean said, as Luna snatched a wand away from him and climbed a ladder to retrieve another slender box. “Isn’t it awfully hard work?”

“A bit,” Luna said, stepping off the ladder to land lightly on the floor. “But Mr Ollivander did talk a lot about wands when we were held captive together. I’m learning the rest as I go along.” She pressed the next wand into his hand. He flicked it automatically, and jumped when a shower of colourful sparks shot out from the tip. Luna laughed merrily, bouncing on her toes and clapping her hands, beaming at him as if he were a child who had just done something exceptionally clever. He couldn’t help but smile back.

When he handed over the Galleons, she leaned in close to him and confided in a low murmur, “It’s willow with a unicorn forelock hair core. Very good for women’s magic.” When Dean spluttered, she added, as though it were an afterthought, “Oh, and healing.”

“I’m going to be a Healer?” Dean was flabbergasted. 

“Are you?” Luna asked, as though it had been a declaration, not a question.

“Er, no. I’m not,” Dean answered firmly. He’d never thought for a second of going into that field. After the Battle, he was pretty sure he couldn’t stomach it either.

Luna was unruffled. “Oh. Well, maybe you’re the one who needs healing, then.”

Before Dean could ask what she meant by that, she’d wandered off towards the back of the shop, her arms piled with the carefully reboxed wands that hadn’t suited him. He lingered for half a minute, but she failed to reappear, so he slipped put of the shop into the bustling street.

Dean didn’t hurry in his search for Seamus. Though he considered Luna a friend - more than a friend - her words had deeply unsettled him. He had shared rambling walks and tentative embraces with her at Shell Cottage. _You can kiss me if you like_ , she’d said, and he had, slowly and gently. He was afraid to hold her in his arms, because she was so thin. Her collarbones looked sharp enough to cut him, and her skin was translucent; all the veins clearly visible, like rivers viewed from the air. He held her hand, and kissed her tissue-thin eyelids and let her whisper in his ear secrets and nonsense he barely, if ever, understood.

During the short weeks they spent together, Dean felt as if he were holding his breath. It was all temporary; he knew. A brief respite amid the chaos. The Battle was like all the air escaping from his lungs in a rush, leaving him gasping. He’d had nothing left, emotionally, not even for himself. Home had been a blessed sanctuary that he’d escaped to at the earliest opportunity. He’d sheltered there through the tumultuous first weeks, not even attending the funerals. He sat in his room and felt hollow, instead. Impotent. Empty.

Dean hadn’t written to her. He thought she would understand. He hoped she had. He hadn’t even thought to ask whether she’d be coming back to school in September. With Luna, it was impossible to predict anything. She seemed content at Ollivander’s, but he wouldn’t put it past her to turn up with all the other returning students on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, looking both at home and outrageously out of place, as always. A wildflower amid a sea of prim pansies.

Lost in thought, he very nearly collided with a stooped, elderly witch with coffee-coloured skin and silver and white hair drawn back hard into a bun. Dean apologised immediately, but the witch’s face was frozen in shock.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asked, uncomfortably, as she continued to stare.

Abruptly, she broke into a flurry of admonishments. "André! Tant d'années! Tu ne me visites pas, tu ne m'écris pas!"

Dean blinked, and tried to pacify her. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

"T'a oublié ton français, eh? Quoi, André? Pas de saluts pour ta grand-mère? Pas de bisou?"

“I don’t understand!” Dean protested.

"Maman, qu'est ce qui ce passe?" A middle aged woman had approached and taken the arm of the elder. Her eyes flicked to Dean’s face. At first, there was something like accusation in them, but then she seemed to flinch. "Ce n'est pas lui, Maman."

"C'est lui!" the old witch vehemently insisted. "Mon petit garcon!"

“I just bumped into her! I wasn’t watching where I was walking. I’m sorry,” Dean babbled.

“I apologise, _Monsieur_ ,” the younger woman said. “My mother has mistaken you for someone else.” 

She tugged the elderly witch away, who continued to argue with her, though she sounded less defiant, more miserable. "Pad d'erreur! Il fait semblant de pas nous connaître! C'est mon André!"

"Il est trop jeune, Maman. Bien trop jeune. Il aurait presque quarante ans maintenant." The younger witch’s voice was heavy with old grief. Just before they turned the corner, Dean heard her gently murmur one final sentence to her distraught mother. "André est mort."

Even Dean could work out what that meant.

***

Seamus was in Wheezes, chatting up a storm with Lee. Between the two of them yakking away, it was a miracle any business was getting done at all, but it was. A steady flow of customers were approaching the counter, being served and drifting off again, seemingly without Lee having to pause for breath.

Dean must have looked worse than he thought, though, because his appearance was enough to make even Lee falter. Seamus swivelled to look Dean up and down with a worried expression.

“You look bloody awful,” he declared.

Before Dean knew it, a witch had appeared and smoothly taken over the till, and Lee was shepherding them through towards the back of the shop. They emerged into a tiny kitchenette. Lee tapped the Quick Boil kettle with his wand and rummaged about in a cupboard, emerging with several mismatched mugs and a tea caddy. “Sit down before you fall down,” he advised.

“I’m not _that_ bad,” Dean grumbled, but he sat anyway.

“Get any whiter, and you’ll look more like _his_ brother than mine,” Lee said, nodding in Seamus’ direction.

“What happened?” Seamus asked in a hushed, shocked tone. “Could ye... could ye not... Your magic... is it... ?”

Dean actually started laughing slightly hysterically, and watched his friends exchange a glance that suggested if he didn’t stop and start talking, they might Floo St. Mungo’s. Or at least Apparate him home to his mother, which was actually more daunting. 

He cleared his throat and gathered his composure. “Thank you for your concern. My _wand_ ,” he emphasised, reaching down and not-so-subtly readjusting himself, “is in full working order. And it’s inches longer than either of yours.”

The schoolboy joke - as old as Hogwarts itself, probably - made Seamus visibly relax, and shoot him a relieved grin. Lee handed them both mugs of tea, and asked, “What’s the wood and core?”

“Willow and unicorn,” he said, in what he hoped was a casual tone.

Lee and Seamus broke into peals of laughter.

“Wankers,” Dean mumbled into his tea, and hoped the flush on his cheeks wasn’t too obvious.

Lee made an effort to cover his chuckles with a coughing fit. Seamus quieted remarkably quickly, but Dean noticed the way he was holding his pinkie out as he sipped at his tea. Dean kicked him in the shin, and smirked when he yelped and slopped tea down his shirt.

“When did Luna start running the shop?” Dean asked, in an effort to divert the conversation.

“A couple of weeks after the war ended,” Lee said. “The shop had been left more or less intact – unlike this place – so all she really had to do was dust it and unlock the doors.”

“Wheezes was damaged?” Dean asked. It was the first he’d heard of it, but really, it wasn’t too surprising.

Lee grimaced. “Yeah. Those bastard Death Eaters in the Aurors turned the place over after Fr... after the Weasleys went into hiding. They didn’t get into the workroom, though. That’s where all the prototypes and a heap of excess stock is kept. The doorway was pretty heavily warded and glamoured, just in case. I think Bill had something to do with it. He had to come and take it off for us, anyway. The main damage was out in the shop, and up in the flat. They made a right mess of the Burrow, too.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” Dean said.

“What are ye sorry for? Wasn’t you that did it!” Seamus blurted. There was an angry crease between his eyebrows, though his voice was even.

“I just ran away and hid. You’ve all been rebuilding, and going through crap, and I’ve been pretending...”

“Nobody blames you for that,” Seamus cut in. “Your mam, she was worried sick. It was right that ye went back there for a time. And before ye say it, ye were right to run _during_ the war as well. Those wards on your house are good enough to keep _them_ safe, but had ye been there, it would’ve drawn those Snatchers like ants to honey.”

Dean gaped. “Wards?” he managed.

“Yeah, wards. The ones coating that house from top to bottom. I’d like to know how ye managed them,” Seamus hinted, open curiosity and a measure of respect clear on his face. Lee’s eyebrows were raised, too.

“I didn’t put up any wards,” Dean blurted.

Seamus looked a bit perplexed. “Must have been an Order member, then. Maybe while you were on the run. They’re good work; solid, powerful. I could feel them as soon as I walked through your gate. Wouldn’t want to try approaching them with any kind of ill intent, that’s for sure.”

Dean said nothing, partly because he was stunned that his house had been warded by some unknown benefactor, and partly because _he’d never noticed_. Home just felt like... _home_ , and his home had always been Muggle, until he started having bursts of accidental magic. Hadn’t it?

“So, if it wasn’t a problem with your wand, what upset you, then?” Seamus asked, finally.

“An old lady saw me on the street and thought I was somebody else. I think her daughter said they were dead.”

“You think?”

“They were speaking French. She told me in English that it was a misunderstanding, and as they walked away, she said, ‘André est mort’.”

“André is dead,” Lee said, quietly.

“You speak French?” Dean asked.

“A little; not much. I understand it better than I speak it. My grandparents used to speak it at home.”

Seamus reached out and squeezed Dean’s shoulder.

“A lot of people lost someone during the war, mate,” Lee said softly. “It’s not your fault you look like that other bloke, whoever he was.”

The conversation lapsed into an uneasy silence. None of them mentioned Fred, whose presence was suddenly almost palpable.

“How’s George doing?” Dean asked.

“He does more of the development side of things, these days,” Lee said. “Spends a lot of time in the workroom. Doesn’t like the customers, so much. He says they stare for all the wrong reasons.”

“So, it’s just you out there?”

“Just Verity and me, but that’s only temporary. When Ron gets back from Australia, he’ll take over. I’ve got a job offer for an entry level position with WWN, and I’m going for it.”

Both Dean and Seamus seized the safer topic and congratulated Lee with enthusiasm, so much so that Lee grinned slightly embarrassedly, and ducked his head.

“It’s nothing exciting! I’ll probably just be some kind of glorified teaboy,” he warned, though he looked happy with the prospect, regardless. “If I do end up on air at some point, it’ll probably be at some ungodly hour of the morning, when only the Mediwitches on the night shift at St. Mungo’s are listening.”

“You’re going to get fangirls. They’re going to Owl you their knickers and everything,” Dean told Lee with relish.

Lee spat his mouthful of tea back into his cup. “Merlin, I hope not! They’d probably be probably beige and big enough to parachute with!”


End file.
